The Pre-Wrath View

The Pre-Wrath View is the most frustrating to deal with, I hate saying that because I love Pre-Wrath believers as much as all fellow believers, in fact all people, period.  But I've frankly come to consider it the least likely of the the 4 major views to be correct.

You would think a view that places The Rapture somewhere between the beginning and end of The Seventieth Week would be very akin to Mid-Trib/Mid-Seventieth Week.  And Indeed some annoying Pre and Post Tirbbers who haven't studied Pre-Wrath at all just use the terms as synonymous.

But in fact the unique way they convolute things makes them share some of the most frustrating aspects of both Pre-Trib and Post-Trib.

Like Pre-Tribbers they insist on building doctrine on an idea that exactly when on God's Timeline The Parusia happens can't be known.  Based on the same flawed understanding of one key line of the Olivte Discourse.  And they share Pre-Tribber hatred of seeing the Rapture in the same parts of Revelation itself that Mid-Tribbers see it (Post-Tribbers see it in the same verses, but garble the chronology)

Like Post-Tribbers they insist that those Marytred by The beast are part of The Church, even though that idea I consider Biblically refutable.  And like them they insist all 3.5 year references in Revelation are to the second half.  And they think they don't garble the Chronology of Revelation like Post-Tirbbers, but they do, just differently.  Because a plain reading of Revelation places the 7th Trumpet in the middle of the 7 year period.

And like both, they want to expand the definition of Wrath to be all of Revelation's divine Judgments, not just the Seven Bowls.

But even though it's the least likely view to be true, It takes the most effort to refute because it's founded on a number of linked flawed assumption.  And whenever I make my argument against one of those flawed assumptions to one of them, they just cite their other flawed assumptions as backing their view up.  While Pre-Trib and Post-Trib are each founded on just one or two basic doctrinal fallacies that I can easily shoot down.

I've talked about the Sixth Seal and Joel before.  I argued why their argued parallels between Matthew 24:29 (and it's parallels in the other Olivte Discourses) are not as strong as they think.  But even if they were, these natural Disaster/Cosmic Signs aspect are only one aspect, and the least universal aspect.  Outside Revelation only The Olivte Discourse links these kinds of signs with The Rapture.  But that's what they consider definitive to how to locate the Rapture in Revelation.

Meanwhile, Jesus Coming on a cloud or in the clouds is part of all three Olivte Discourses, and 1 Thessalonians 4:17 (In Revelation this happens in chapter 14.  The Gathering of the Saints is in Matthew and Mark's Olivte Discourses and 1 Thessalonians 4:17, and what I consider the best Old Testament Rapture reference in Joel 2:15-16.  The Resurrection of the Saints is in 1 Corinthians 15 and 1 Thessalonians 4, and the most Popular Old Testament Rapture reference in Isaiah 26.  None of those happen in the 6th Seal of Revelation 7.

But really, the most nearly universal aspect is a Trumpet being Sounded.  It's in Joel 2:15, Matthew 24:30 (but left out the other 2 Olivite Discourses), 1 Corinthians 15 and 1 Thessalonians 4.  And I think the Trumpet reference in Hebrews 12:19 is arguably linked too, I'm still studying that.

And the Seventh Trumpet does also have an Earthquake, Lighting, and Cosmic Signs.

Yet Pre-Tribbers and Pre-Wrathers have such an aversion to seeing a possible connection between the the Trumpets of Revelation and earlier Trumpet references in Scripture.  Even though Revelation is all about finally explaining what was a mystery in The Bible before.

Their other key assumptions about "Great Tribulation" and Wrath I have dealt with elsewhere.